Deciding priorities

Dear editor:

Until I visited the “Home Run for Hot Springs” website, I never realized how vital baseball fields were for Hot Springs. Reading the comments, you’d wonder how the city even exists without them. Yet, where were these folks 18 months ago when city officials sat by and watched the Hot Springs Boys & Girls Club, a 75-year-old institution that had touched so many lives, fail? Where was the outrage? Because we not only lost youth baseball, but football, basketball, soccer, after school and reading programs, and so much more. Except for a few common citizens like myself who wrote letters; silence was heard from city leaders.

For much less than $8.5 million, and without tax extensions, the city could have stepped in, re-organized and put in new management to make the club at least self-sustaining. But our city board, along with Bill Burrough and Steve Arrison, with all their clout, did nothing. Perhaps that’s because the board had already decided to donate the land to the A&P Commission, and this $8.5 million project with no details was in the works.

But what’s done is done. Now voters of Hot Springs must decide priorities. We do have a serious crime problem, and it’s not because of the police, as one person alluded. It’s because we don’t have any real industrial or manufacturing jobs. The bulk of the economy of this city revolves around tourism and a casino. Those are both risky endeavors, and though they employ a number of people, most are low-income positions. Subsequently, we have a lot of people, especially younger people, walking the streets in the middle of the day and night. Idle time leads to crime.

As I and other writers have pointed out, we have much more pressing issues than baseball fields that could still exist for much less than $8.5 million. Crime, drainage, deteriorating and poorly marked streets, and yes, if you want to talk “Majestic,” the still vacant and tacky looking remnants of the formerly named hotel that our tourists see every day downtown. Finally, we gave local leaders $42 million to build a new jail years ago, and as has been well documented in this paper, they can’t make that work, so I hesitate to give them money for anything.

The “Home Run for Hot Springs” site states “Quality of life is an essential component for any thriving community.” I couldn’t agree more. I also don’t consider $8.5 million dollars worth of baseball fields that I won’t use essential to “quality of life.” Driveable streets, feeling safe in all parts of town, those would fall into that category for myself.

So when you go to the polls Sept. 10 to voluntarily tax yourself, ask but one question: Will I benefit from this baseball field project, or could our city leaders not use this money more effectively?

Anthony Lloyd Hot Springs